Phillips Will Auction William Eggleston’s Memphis (Tricycle) on October 8

Originally published in the October 2015 issue of Robb Report Collection as “Turning Point”

William Eggleston’s vibrant print Memphis (Tricycle) first rolled into public view in 1976 as part of a color photography exhibit at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Like many works that mark an artistic turning point, it was met with a fair amount of derision: Critics declared its subject banal, its saturated color better suited to advertising, and its composition unforgivably simplistic.